Re: maintaining many Xen VMs

[Jed Davis <jdev%panix.com@localhost>]

Johnny Lam <jlam%pkgsrc.org@localhost> writes:

> I use disk images mounted on vnd devices for my domUs.  My domUs are
> mostly the same, so what I do is:
>
>     1) Have one read-only root filesystem image that has a full NetBSD
>        installation (about 400Mb).
>
>     2) Create a separate disk image for the /usr/pkg filesystem per domU.
>
>     3) Create a separate disk image for the /local filesystem per domU.
>        These vary in size depending on the domU and provide local
>        storage space.
>
>     4) Null-mount /local/etc and /local/var over /etc and /var during
>        startup.
>
>     5) Use MFS for the /dev mount.

I came up with something similar, except that /usr/pkg isn't broken
off (this is mainly just for testing Xen things, so they'd need few
packages if any) and /etc is null-mounted with -o union so that the
config files that don't need to be local can be changed in one place.

>     * Swap out the pkg.img with one with newer packages on it, and
>       quickly swap back when stuff breaks.

But that's a nice feature, I must admit.

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